The Bucks Celebrate Valentine's Day with A Little Humor

The Milwaukee Bucks recently celebrated Valentine's Day by creating a humorous jumbotron vignette that featured the team mascot, Bango, embarking on a full day of activities with his Valentine. The piece, set to the tune of Meatloaf's popular song "I'd Do Anything for Love", featured a pretty ironic twist that instantly won over all fans in attendance at the game vs. the Clippers.

The Milwaukee Bucks organization created the spot as part of a week-long effort to promote Bango as the most awesome mascot of the year in conjunction with the Cartoon Network's Hall of Game Awards. The Bucks are supporting the initiative by posting a skit, commercial, or dunk video every day of the week on the team's YouTube channel and leveraging Facebook and Twitter to drive awareness and fan voting.

Check out Bango's humorous Valentine's Day vignette below:

A special thanks to Michael Grahl of the Milwaukee Bucks organization for his insights and contributions to this column.

Activation of the Day - Cal Athletics, Oski Mobile

Are you looking to create new consumer incentive offers? Are you looking for ways to offer consumers exclusive experiences on game day?

Cal Athletics ran a promotion in 2009 offering fans the chance to win a ride on the Oski Mobile (the mascot's vehicle) when the Golden Bears run onto the field prior to kickoff. To generate awareness, the athletics department featured a viral piece and an online registration form on the University's official athletics website.

Check out the piece below and consider new ways that you can offer exclusive opportunities for your fans at minimal to no cost!

NBDL Mascot Lives on Billboard to Sell Tickets

Are you looking for new ways to spur ticket sales? Are you looking to leverage a team mascot in a media campaign?

The Utah Flash of the NBA D-League recently called on their mascot, Flash Fox, to pull of an incredible stunt to drive season ticket sales. The team asked their mascot to live atop of a billboard along I-15 in American Fork, UT until the team sold 500 incremental season ticket packages... so he did.

On Friday, October 16th, Flash Fox took residence on a billboard touting the team's "Buy Tickets, Save Flash Fox" campaign and lived there for a full week until the team sold 500 season ticket packages. To pass the time, Flash Fox chatted with fans online, broadcasted his day-to-day actions to fans across the nation via Ustream, and camped out with a tent and a rocking chair.

The Utah Flash did a tremendous job supporting the campaign with a custom microsite (www.saveflashfox.com) that fostered Flash Fox's online fan interaction and linked to official Twitter/Facebook pages that featured frequent posts and video updates. The site featured tickers that detailed how long Flash had been living on top of the billboard and how many tickets still needed to be sold. It also mentioned local companies/persons who purchased tickets in support of the cause. 

When the team successfully sold 500 tickets, it called on the local fire department to help Flash Fox get down and filmed the entire story. Check out a terrific video of the entire campaign here:

Check out some of the media exposure the team received from the campaign:

• Yahoo Sports - http://is.gd/4zBkm
• Fox 13 - http://is.gd/4zBgO